Your the general WWI

[SeleucusNicator]

If I am a commander in WW1, I don't attack anyone and I let the other side bleed themselves dry attacking my entrenched positions.

 

[JohnRM]

I would first try to stop and talk to the enemy and try to find an answer as to why we were sending millions to their deaths over Serbia and the assasination of one man. I would probably try to establish what either side could hope to accomplish by being at war and whether or not the war will change the past.

Beyond that...


1. I would never attack, just bombard the living . .. .. .. . out of the enemy and try to focus on planning to disrupt enemy supply lines.

2. The Allies (Royal Navy) should have forced a confrontation with the Central Powers (Germany). The Central Powers should have forced a confrontation with the Allies.

3. It would be cruel to bring anymore souls into the war than necessary.

 

[sydhe]

If I am a commander in WW1, I don't attack anyone and I let the other side bleed themselves dry attacking my entrenched positions.

If your enemy takes the same position, imagine the number of casualties you could both save!

 

[lutzj]

I would have dug tunnels under enemy trenches, cut off their supplies, and wait for their front line to die off, then send in my main force against the weaker lines of resistance farther in.

Low-profile trucks outfitted with machine guns and supplies for setting up fortifications would methodically swallow up the no-mans land

I also may have diverted rivers to flood the enemy's trenches.

Oh yeah... I would heavily take advantage of tanks, mostly as mobile cover and transport for infantry.

Finally, I would use planes as machine gun platforms (bombing was unreliable back then) to strafe the enemy.

 

[Dachs]

I would have dug tunnels under enemy trenches

Because that's really easy in the mud of Flanders and the rocky cliffs of the Aisne, and doesn't require prohibitively large amounts of resources?

Low-profile trucks outfitted with machine guns and supplies for setting up fortifications would methodically swallow up the no-mans land

Wheeled vehicles have issues in mud; the apocalyptic landscape of no-man's-land pretty much prevents you from using trucks to cross it in most places.

I also may have diverted rivers to flood the enemy's trenches.

RL trenches pretty much already were flooded.

Oh yeah... I would heavily take advantage of tanks, mostly as mobile cover and transport for infantry.

Sounds like RL Allied doctrine to me.

Finally, I would use planes as machine gun platforms (bombing was unreliable back then) to strafe the enemy.

They did that in RL too, and it helped so much. Actually, bombing missions with some minor success were carried out on factories not too far from the FEBA, but they had negligible strategic implications. German zeppelins did terror/strategic bombing over England itself too, but again with negligible impact. Even the Allied WWII bombing of Germany didn't really impair the Nazi ability to make war, but it did basically ruin the peace by turning Germany into a destroyed pile of concrete and metal. Strafing does have minor tactical advantages, but those are best when out in the open, like when attacking Mustafa Kemal's retreating Ottoman army after the Battle of Megiddo in Palestine in 1917, which basically forced the Central Powers to forfeit the Levant for the remainder of the war. In the Western Front, air power was guaranteed to remain a secondary arm of service unless the enemy was in headlong retreat already.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Realistically, I would have done what all the generals did.

If we are assuming that I had both the hindsight of decades and complete control over my nation's war effort (no politicians, press, or people demanding a glorious victory) and that I had it starting after the declaration of war, I would have built up my defenses heavily, while investing in tanks and aircraft. If I were the British, I would have carefully planned the Dardanelles operation, and gone with a combined arms approach, sending in troops immediately after the bombardment. I would not have undertaken any Western Front offensives. And I would have maintained the blockade.

Of course, there is a reason that no one did that . . .

 

[kristopherb]

how about the british building zepalins in massive numbers send them out t sea to destory the german navy and sent the British navy to wipe out the surviverors

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Would that work? I don't see how, as zepellins weren't all that useful in combat.

 

[Dachs]

If I were the British, I would have carefully planned the Dardanelles operation, and gone with a combined arms approach, sending in troops immediately after the bombardment.

Sending in troops immediately after the bombardment means that you have to cancel that idiotic 1914 attempt to force the Straits along with the one earlier in 1915 itself under de Robeck. Success at the Dardanelles rested on three things, any of which would have worked: attacking the Asian side of the Straits in addition to the peninsula itself, enlisting the assistance of the Greeks (to not only shore up the Serbs but also to assist against "Turkey proper", i.e. Thrace and Anatolia, and perhaps also invade Bulgarian Thrace - all of that would be with Allied assistance, but at least this time the French and Brits wouldn't be penned up in the Salonika "prisoner-of-war camp"), or appointing commanders with clear individual initiative, enough to actually seize on successes instead of screwing around on the beach while the Turks transfer troops from the Armenian front.

I would not have undertaken any Western Front offensives.

Thus ensuring the utter collapse of France. Seriously, though, I foresee German victory in 1917 without the British distractions provided at the Somme, during the British wing of the Nivelle offensive, and at Third Ypres. What would have prevented the Germans from exploiting the gigantic gap created during the great mutiny, had the British not heroically died in droves? Theoretically, if you had control over both France and Britain, this would be viable, but it would also be impossible.

how about the british building zepalins in massive numbers send them out t sea to destory the german navy and sent the British navy to wipe out the surviverors

As Eran noted, this is impractical for several reasons. One, the British don't make zeppelins, and they have no motivation to do so. Two, the German High Seas Fleet anchorage in Wilhelmshavn had sufficient Archie and air cover, I believe (though could be wrong) to repel a British air offensive, and zeppelins are too slow to pursue a surface navy. Three, without radio the zeppelins would confuse the British fleet with the Germans if the Royal Navy is sufficiently close to the High Seas Fleet to kill the rest of them before the Germans (who are very good at running away, as seen after the Dogger Bank and the Battle of Jutland) can escape. Four, zeppelins aren't accurate enough to hit ships anyway. Five, how would the British exploit such a destruction of the German navy? Launching the Borkum Plan at this juncture is silly and may even prolong the war by allowing the Germans to rally round the flag in a defense of the homeland, while sucking British Tommies into a disastrous second front over an unprotected naval supply line and dominated by brutal urban warfare the likes of which the Western Front had not yet seen.

In short, British zeppelins are a half-baked idea.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

You're right about British and French offensives, I suppose - things would have gone poorly if only one but not the other had tried them. Then again, it wasn't generals making those decisions.

 

[Verbose]

Thus ensuring the utter collapse of France. Seriously, though, I foresee German victory in 1917 without the British distractions provided at the Somme, during the British wing of the Nivelle offensive, and at Third Ypres. What would have prevented the Germans from exploiting the gigantic gap created during the great mutiny, had the British not heroically died in droves? Theoretically, if you had control over both France and Britain, this would be viable, but it would also be impossible.

The French armys was still in the way. What gap was that again?

You are aware that almost none of the mutinous regiments left the frotnline? About 2 French regiments out of 3 refused any further offensive orders, but there were no gaps opening up in the lines for French troops deserting the frontline. They were Ok with holding their trenches against German offensive operations, just not going over the top to get butchered. They almost always continued to show solidarity with their own frontline officers, reserving their scorn for "les grands", either the staff officers and senior command, or the big-wig civilians. It was rather a case of "citizen soldiers" collectively deciding that at this point "citizen" should take precedence over "soldier", until convinced otherwise.

What then happened was that the military authorities rotated the least reliable units out of the Frontline to be replaced by the third of the army not touched by it. And then they sent Pétain in to restore discipline, which he did well enough to start at least a limited offensive (Malmaison) beginning in the summer of 1917.

Of course, if order had not been relativley quickly been reestablished in the French army, they would have been in bad trouble, but it was, so the French army lived to fight another day.

As it is perfectly true that if the British hadn't showed up in numbers by 1916, it would have been curtains for the French in WWI. The German knew it perfectly well to, and while they didn't really blame the French for wanting to fight them, they did blame the English for backing the French in doing so.

 

[Dachs]

You are aware that almost none of the mutinous regiments left the frotnline? About 2 French regiments out of 3 refused any further offensive orders, but there were no gaps opening up in the lines for French troops deserting the frontline.

I guess Martin Gilbert must be wrong about those thirty thousand poilus just up and going AWOL, then, because we all know he's got no credentials as a historian.

They were Ok with holding their trenches against German offensive operations, just not going over the top to get butchered. They almost always continued to show solidarity with their own frontline officers, reserving their scorn for "les grands", either the staff officers and senior command, or the big-wig civilians. It was rather a case of "citizen soldiers" collectively deciding that at this point "citizen" should take precedence over "soldier", until convinced otherwise.

What then happened was that the military authorities rotated the least reliable units out of the Frontline to be replaced by the third of the army not touched by it.

What I've read has always indicated that those 30,000 or so citizen soldiers voted with their feet, but that most troops remained in their entrenchments as you indicated; however, the brass believed that they were unreliable and tried to have them rotated out. John Keegan in his own First World War said that although the French reported to the British that two divisions had refused to relieve two unreliable divisions, it was actually on the scale of about fifty divisions, or about half of the French army. A fifty-division tie up would do hell to logistics alone in the event of a German attack; the fact that fifty French divisions were so unwilling to fight that they didn't even take their places in the line indicates that they wouldn't have fought behind said line. To that is added the aforementioned thirty thousand soldiers, which being about two to three divisions' worth of combat soldiers (or one and a half AEF divisions, due to their larger size) is a very large gap anyway, which Ludendorff and Hindenburg could have exploited to France's ultimate detriment.

And then they sent Pétain in to restore discipline, which he did well enough to start at least a limited offensive (Malmaison) beginning in the summer of 1917.

That's true, but it also had a very large part to do with the multiple divisions of British troops that showed up, providing a backbone and allowing said Malmaison offensive to be carried out with Allied (not just French) manpower.

As it is perfectly true that if the British hadn't showed up in numbers by 1916, it would have been curtains for the French in WWI. The German knew it perfectly well to, and while they didn't really blame the French for wanting to fight them, they did blame the English for backing the French in doing so.

Personally, I thought that the year the French needed the British the most was 1914. But yeah, that's basically right.

 

[Verbose]

I guess Martin Gilbert must be wrong about those thirty thousand poilus just up and going AWOL, then, because we all know he's got no credentials as a historian.

What I've read has always indicated that those 30,000 or so citizen soldiers voted with their feet, but that most troops remained in their entrenchments as you indicated; however, the brass believed that they were unreliable and tried to have them rotated out. John Keegan in his own First World War said that although the French reported to the British that two divisions had refused to relieve two unreliable divisions, it was actually on the scale of about fifty divisions, or about half of the French army. A fifty-division tie up would do hell to logistics alone in the event of a German attack; the fact that fifty French divisions were so unwilling to fight that they didn't even take their places in the line indicates that they wouldn't have fought behind said line. To that is added the aforementioned thirty thousand soldiers, which being about two to three divisions' worth of combat soldiers (or one and a half AEF divisions, due to their larger size) is a very large gap anyway, which Ludendorff and Hindenburg could have exploited to France's ultimate detriment.

From the French sources I've seen, it would seem to have affected about 2 out of three regiments in the field army on the western front. It was very serious.

We are talking about a field army of 1,6 million men. 30 000 is a lot, but less than 2%. In 1917 you also have a hushed up British mutiny involving 80 000 men, where the documents are still unavailable until 2017. There were more mutinies, large and small, of shorter and longer duration.

The French in 1917 was just so massive in scale it dwarfs the rest, but it also wasn't too homogenous. So sure, you got a couple of divisions of poilus marching on Paris, but maybe as many as 1 million men were also affected to a lesser degree. The amazing bit is in a way that it was possible to solve so relatively quickly, and the French army continued to fight.

Major reasons it would seem the Germans didn't even notice this at the time was 1) no gaps were opening up, when the Germans came probing there was resistance, 2) the Germans were having trouble themselves with an exhausted army where not all units were in top-notch condition at the time, 3) it was of a limited duration.

Change anyone of those, and the French army in WWI would really have gone to pieces.